One of England's
finest talents of the 1970s and 1980s, Glenn Hoddle was
hugely appreciated by the Spurs crowd, while his skills
were derided in some other parts of the country and his
return of caps for England showed a scant disregard for
his abilities, when other journeymen were selected ahead
of him for the national team.

Born in Middlesex, but
with his family moving to Harlow at an early age, Hoddle attended St. Albans junior school
and Burnt
Mill Comprehensive, Harlow, playing football for Harlow district football
team, Essex County
Under-15, Under-17 and Under-19 sides. He also played rugby at fly-half for
West Essex Boys,
as his sporty nature lent itself to a number of
different disciplines.

Spotted by Spurs and
joined as a junior aged 12, working his way through the ranks at
the club, during which time he represented England Youth,
before going on to play for the Under-21s and the
senior national side.

Signed for Spurs on 27th April 1974 as an
apprentice at 16, before he was signed as a professional with Tottenham
Hotspur on 8th April 1975, having represented England Youth in that year.

Hoddle didn't have to wait too long for
his first appearance, coming on as a substitute for
Cyril Knowles in the home
game v Norwich
City (First Division) 30th August 1975. His first start was later
that season away v Stoke City (First
Division) 21st April 1976, when he marked it with what was to come to be
a trademark goal. Picking the ball up twenty five yards out, he
thundered a low drive out of the muddy turf to beat Peter Shilton and
secure Tottenham a valuable win.

Glenn Hoddle became a
cause celebre with many and for others, he was the
fancy-dan midfielder who had no place in the England
side, but his quick footwork, his vision to know where
each team-mate was on the pitch and his laser precision
passing, which could lay the ball exactly where the
recipient wanted it made many a colleague look a better
player than perhaps they were and turned seemingly
dead-end situations into goals. There were few
players who could do what Hoddle could do with a
football and many of his detractors would not be fit to
play alongside of him.

Relegation in 1977 saw
Hoddle stay with the club and it was perhaps during this
campaign that he learned to be strong on the ball, with
Second Division opponents not always willing to give
players the time or the opportunity to play as they
would like. How Spurs contrived to need a last day
draw with Southampton to go up, when they had been so
dominant for most of the campaign is a mystery, but
promotion back to the top flight was achieved, with one
major factor being developed during this season which
should not be over-looked - the partnership between
Glenn Hoddle and Steve Perryman. The club captain
had started out as a midfielder, but had dropped back
and when he took up a place behind Hoddle, he acted as
the ball-winner that the talented youngster needed.
He became Hoddle's enforcer too, with players knowing
that if they thought they could kick Glenn out of the
game, they would have to face up to Stevie P.
Winning the ball and laying a simple pass off to Hoddle,
Perryman provided the support the midfielder needed and
never really got playing for his country.

It was not just Hoddle's
passing that caught the eye, but he was able to strike a
ball true and hard. Many shots from dead or moving
balls left keepers grasping at clean air and a few will
live for a long time in the memory. The long
clearance up-field that was headed on by Gerry Armstrong
for Hoddle to volley home past Peter Shilton (again) for
a goal against Forest that didn't touch the floor form
one end to another; His waist high volley from just
inside the area against Man U in the League Cup at the
Lane 1979; a rip snorter of a shot at Liverpool in 1982
from about 30 yards that left Grobbelaar helpless; The
1983 chip against Watford, when he took
Garry Brooke's
pass inside the box, turned his marker with a Cruyff
turn and chipped the tall Hornets keeper Steve Sherwood
with a delightful dink that left him stranded; his debut
goal for England in a match delayed because of fog, when
he side-footed a half volley into the top of the net
from the edge of the box. All goals that showed a
fine technical skill level little seen in English
players of the time.

When
Ossie Ardiles and
Ricardo Villa signed for Spurs on the clubs return to
the top flight, their presence took all the headlines
and while it took time to integrate into the side,
Hoddle and Ardiles were like-minded souls, who played
the game the right way and their linking in midfield
became one of the defining reasons Tottenham found
success in the early 1980s. Two FA Cup wins, a
share of a Charity Shield, a League Cup Final and a UEFA
Cup final win in Keith Burkinshaw's last match gave the
manager a fine send off and it was his belief in them
which brought silverware, goals and many memorable
moments. None more so than in Ossie Ardiles'
Benefit match when the sight of Ardiles, Hoddle and
Maradona together in a Spurs shirt was something that
might never have been imaginable. It was only a
shame that Ossie could not take a greater part in the
match because of his knee injury, but Maradona and
Hoddle played together as if they were born to do so.
It was a performance that was nothing less than sublime.

Glenn's time at Tottenham
also featured three spells in goal for the club, taking
over from injured goalkeepers. His first
experience of taking the gloves in a match came at Leeds
United, when Barry Daines was injured in the 11th minute
on 20th October 1979 and he was called on again in an FA
Cup tie at Manchester United on 9th January 1980, when
Milija Aleksic was carried off with a broken jaw.
His final turn in goal came when Aleksic once more
sustained an injury, this time gashing his knee when
catching it on a hook on the goal-post at Carrow Road on
27th December 1980 during the First Division match with
Spurs.

Hoddle was
often a target for opponents to try to kick him out of
the game and only once, against Brugge in the UEFA Cup,
did Glenn lose it and get sent off. Most of the
time he got on with the game and even when he suffered
nasty injuries, such as the gash in his forehead against
Bohemians of Prague, he simply got it bandaged and
carried on. He was tougher than a lot of the
people how nicknamed him 'Glenda' thought.

Some of this lightweight
reputation was borne out of his singing partnership with
Chris Waddle, which produced a hit single in "Diamond
Lights", although the follow-up "It's Goodbye" was not
as successful and was perhaps a prophetic end to their
pop career.

His last season at
Tottenham saw the team, under David Pleat, play a new
formation that produced plenty of goals for lone forward
Clive Allen and many came from the moves involving Glenn
Hoddle and Chris Waddle. Hoddle was performing at
a very high level of technical ability and the loss in
the FA Cup Final came as a disappointment to a fine
season in which Spurs once more failed to make the most
of the assorted talents available to force a
championship challenge. In his last home game,
Hoddle scored against Oxford United in a 3-1 win.
Taking the ball halfway inside his own half, he pushed
the ball forward past two defenders, who he sent the
wrong way with a shake of his hips and then did not
touch the ball again until he knocked it into an empty
net, having sent goalkeeper Peter Hucker diving the
wrong way when he feigned to shoot. Four touches
in 60 yards and all the players done with a drop of the
shoulder or sway of his hips. Pure class.

After the
1986-87 season, Hoddle decided to move on from Tottenham
and accepted a move abroad to broaden his horizons and
he played his football in France at Monaco, where the
manager was Arsene Wenger (later to take over at
Arsenal). When he wanted to return to England,
Swindon Town were first in for him and he had a
successful time at the County Ground, Hoddle took over
as player manager and guided the team to the Premier
League for the first time. Unfortunately for the
club, Glenn became hot property, with a number of clubs
seeking his services.

Moving on to Stamford Bridge,
he had a good spell at Chelsea, although he did
suffer from some injuries, then he assumed the role of
player manager once more. He made a fundamental
change to the way the club operated in terms of the playing
side and they reaped the benefit after Hoddle had left
for the England manager's job.

Glenn lost the England
manager's job after an interview in the Times that
quoted him as making comments about the sins of their
past being visited upon the disabled and this came after
a lot of debate about his continued use of Eileen
Drewery, a faith healer, who Hoddle had used at club
level and introduced into the England set-up, much to
the derision of the Press and some of the players.
There was also controversy over his selection for the
1998 World Cup finals. After qualifying from a
tough group and getting the point needed away to Italy
to go through to the finals in France, his choice to
leave Paul Gascoigne out of the squad, leading to him
smashing up his hotel room, brought criticism.
When David Beckham was sent off against Argentina in the
quarter finals, Hoddle's refusal to back his player also
brought media condemnation. Worse was to come when
his book - a diary of the World Cup experience - was
published and it revealed how he told players they were
not being taken to the finals and this was deemed to be
something that should be kept in house. Thus, with
the media against him, it was only a short leap to them
finding an excuse to get him the sack.

In 2008, Hoddle set up the
first independent football academy based in
Montecastillo, Spain taking academy players discarded by
Premier League clubs and trying to develop them to have
a future in the game, where he teamed up once more with
coach John Gorman. The academy linked up with a
local team - Industrial Jerez - and filled it with the
players at the facility, but, despite doing well, a
disagreement over money in 2011 saw the academy move to
England, using Bisham Abbey as it's base and striking up
an agreement with Hyde FC of the Blue Square North to
give their players game time, after a similar deal with
Rushden and Diamonds.

"Glenn was great. He
was a very technical type of manager, as he was a player and
it was of prime importance to him to have his teams playing
a particular type of football. I really appreciated
this, as someone who always wanted to play the ball on the
ground, think forward and create lots of goal-scoring
opportunities. He was a really positive manager and I
can take a lot from my days working under him."

David Ginola ... 28.04.2001 (THFC
programme)

"I was delighted for the
fans when Glenn Hoddle was appointed manger – it was the
best thing that could have happened to the club. Glenn will
bring a different style of play to improve the club and
hopefully for the fans it will mean an improvement in their
fortunes. He was a legend as a Spurs player and I am sure
that he will do everything he can to become a legend as a
manager too.
I think Glenn will bring a more professional approach tot he
club in terms of the diet and the mental preparation for
matches. It will be a more continental style, because Glenn
learnt a lot when he played in France about how they
approach the game as a whole.
The fact that Glenn worked so well with Arsene when they
were together at Monaco, means we are likely to see some of
Arsene's influence in the way Glenn does things."

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What Glenn Hoddle said about ...

... him being a luxury player ...
18.01.2008 (The Times)

"They called me a luxury
player. I used to laugh my head off when people said
it. I would think 'What about the run-of-the-mill
players - there are hundreds of them in this country.
Are they not luxury players ?' "

"Perhaps the most frustrating
thing of all is that those of us who tried to play creative
football had everything stacked against us. Because
there wasn't a six-second rule or a back-pass rule, they
would wait for the back four to squeeze right up to the
halfway line, which is why Wimbledon and Watford had a lot
of joy. So it meant that you were playing in 40 yards
of mud. The ball would drop down and you would have to
do something on those horrendous pitches surrounded by 20
players in a 60 by 40 area."

"You also didn't have the
protection that exists today. Wherever I went I had a
guy trying to block me, pull my shirt or spit at me.
I would love to play with today's rules on today's pitches."

... his academy for released
Premier League youngsters ... 24.05.2008 (Daily Mirror)

"I had it in mind ever
since my first job as a manager at Swindon Town. Five
weeks after taking over, I had to let half a dozen youth
team players go, and five of them broke down in my office.
It didn't get any easier when I moved on to Chelsea, where
it was again the most horrible thing I had to do. When
I was England manager, picking a World Cup squad was a walk
in the park compared to telling 18-year old lads they are
out of a job.

Some of the best I have worked
with were late starters who flourished after turning 20.

The idea of this Academy is to
give these lads a second chance and see if we can develop
some of this young talent away from the peer pressure and
the increasing number of foreign players in the Prem.
it is harder than ever for young English players to make
their mark in the Premier League. In the next few
years I can see the Championship becoming an important
division for grooming future international players."

... Arsenal's failure to win
trophies ... ..2008 (Daily Mirror)

"Arsenal haven't won
anything for three years, so they are used to success."

... Ledley King ... 10.05.2014 (THFC
website)

"When I first saw Ledley
King play as a youngster, the thing that impressed me most
was how calm he was," recalled Glenn. "He was never
flustered; even in and around his own penalty box while
under pressure, he was always in control. I loved the
way he played; so two-footed as he brought the ball out of
defence. He had such natural ability and possessed supreme
confidence in what he could do. Where some defenders would
panic, Ledley would dominate."